Dodge Brothers Shape Automotive History #Dodge @SWChryslerPR @CarPRChick @KathyatChrysler Everyone in the United States and most people in the industrialized world are familiar with Dodge as a vehicle manufacturer and know that it has existed since near the beginning of the last century. As a special event for the 100th anniversary of the Dodge brand, a number of journalists were invited to the Dodge mansion and Dodge museum to learn more about the history of the company and the men who founded it. John Francis Dodge was born in 1964 and his brother Horace in 1868. John Dodge began his entrepreneurial career building and improving fences. He quickly used his inventiveness to perfect a primary means of transportation in metropolitan Michigan when he invented and received a patent on a dirt-resistant bicycle bearing. He and his brother John began a bicycle company and started production in their first factory in Windsor, Canada. One can only imagine the condition of the roads and streets in 1896 when the patent was granted. The company was a great success and was sold. The brothers then built what would become the largest machine shop in Detroit, beginning a major supplier of engines, transmissions and axles, first to Oldsmobile and Northern. Then, in 1903 a major shift occurred when the brothers borrowed $75,000 and began an association with Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company. John and Horace created the production drawings and mechanical parts – including engines, transmissions, frames and axles for Ford. They devoted their entire shop – 135 workers – to working on Ford Motor cars. This is contrasted to Ford itself, which only employed 12 workers at the time. At that point, Ford could not afford to pay for their services and the brothers accepted a ten percent share of the Ford Motor Company stock for their work and risk. In 1910 a main plant was built to supply Ford with engines and transmissions. That plant would grow to 5,140,000 feet of space and occupy 78 acres. They continued to supply Ford until 1914 when they gave up all the Ford business to build their own vehicle for the first time – a 1914 Dodge Touring Car priced at $785. They built a total of 249 vehicles in the final two months of that first year and massively grew the following year, becoming the third best-selling automaker in the nation in 2015. During America’s “war” with Mexico in 1916-17, three Dodge vehicles were used by Gen George Patton against Pancho Villa. As a result of their success then, the US Army later ordered 13,000 Dodges. During World War 1, the government also engaged Dodge to build recoil mechanisms that were used in French field guns. Madelyn, the Dodge Museum Curator, pointed out that the French could only produce five of the mechanisms a month. Dodge promised they would be producing 50 monthly within three months and fulfilled that pledge. Showing their patriotism, they built an entire new ordinance factory to produce the mechanisms. In 1919 the brothers sold their Ford stock which totaled 2000 shares at the time for $25 million. They tripled the size of their plant to 3.3 million square feet and were then building 425,000 vehicles annually, employing 20,000 workers. They were then the second largest vehicle manufacturer in the country, second only to Ford. Only a year later, tragedy struck when John and Horace contracted influenza at the New York Auto Show. Horace became seriously ill immediately and John remained at his side. John passed away from pneumonia on January 14, 1920 and Horace held on until that December. Insisting on working together through their entire lives, the brothers were laid to rest in the same tomb, with Horace forever resting beside John according to a newspaper article of the time. The widows sold the entire company to New York investment bankers in 1926 for a total price of $146 million. The bankers investment paid off when it was sold for $170 million to the Chrysler Corporation in 1928 creating what has been referred to as “The Big Three” ever since. The 320 acres Meadowbrook Farms, the current site of the Dodge Mansion (completed by John’s wife Matilda and her new husband after John’s death in 1929) was originally purchased in 1908. The journalists who were treated to a complete tour of the 88,000 square foot home had to remark among ourselves about how sad it was that John and Horace did not live to enjoy the fruits of their genius and labors. We also had to wonder about how the path of modern history changed because of the loss of that genius at such young ages.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 05:21:13 +0000
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